Sooners Make Road Statement…

Greg Powers

09/14/2008

Last year the Sooners were clearly a different team when they went on the road. Both of their regular season losses happened away from home and they seemed to struggle more in the games they did win. Last night in Washington they made the statement that they are a different team in 2008.

After the first two games of the 2008 season it was clear that the Sooners were talented enough on both sides of the ball to be considered as one of the best teams in the country.

After a couple of stumbles on the road a year ago there was a question as to whether or not OU was going to get it done away from Owen Field.

After last nights 55-14 trouncing of the Washington Huskies the early indications are that the Sooners are for real, and they were awarded for their strong performance by being elevated to number two in both the Coaches and AP Polls on Sunday afternoon.

"To come here and win in a strong way is pleasing and it gives you a feeling that you're getting somewhere," Stoops said after the game. "I feel, as a team, that we're getting stronger and better."

"I'm just really overall pleased with the way our players executed and played and with the attitude they came into the game with. I felt really confident in the way they practiced all week, the way they got on the plane, they way they came to the stadium. I really felt like they had something to prove."

Senior wide receiver Juaquin Iglesias knew that the Sooners needed to come out and establish they could execute their offense effectively away from their home crowd, and he admits the team used that for motivation.

"Yeah, it was," Iglesias said when asked if the Sooners' shaky road reputation was an extra motivator.

"We were only a couple plays away from being good on the road last year, so we tried to focus on that and I think it showed out there when we focus our minds we do what we gotta do."

Chris Brown, who only got one carry in last years first road loss to Colorado, agrees with Stoops and Iglesias about the importance of getting that monkey off their backs.

"It was a big win; coming on the road is always tough," Brown informed. "We knew playing up here was a hostile environment, so it was a big test for us. The whole week we've been preparing to come up here and deal with the fans. It's a great team with a great history, but we came out with the victory."

Brown believes that it was also a big step in the right direction to prove and establish that the offense can run the football equally as good as they can throw it, especially on the road.

"That's just being physical, in the run game or the pass game," Brown said of their success on the ground. "Fortunately we did that and came out and made a statement."

"Last year we weren't a good road team, so we had our minds set on coming out—today was the big step for us—how are we going to react on the road with the hostile crowd and everything."